[
    {
        "id": 211435,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 151,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "127\n\nfluently in the process, although he suffered much teasing and abuse from the native boys.\n\nBorn and bred in the city, Grandfather was an intellectual and romantic, but not a good businessman. He loved to read, an enjoyment my mother also shared. Physically he was fair-skinned and fine-haired. Grandmother, on the other hand, from a village environment, was warm, hearty and practical. I have no recollection of her, but I understand that she was an active person, with a good deal of energy and drive. A snapshot of her shows an angular face with rather long teeth and high cheek bones. Cousin Helen Jong Zane is said to resemble her somewhat in looks and temperament.\n\nGrandfather handled Uncle with little understanding. The latter was required to do more than was reasonable for a growing boy. He had little energy left to do well in his studies, for he often fell asleep while doing his homework. Grandmother thus felt compelled to be protective of him against Grandfather's explosive temper. Mother, bright and delicate, was very pleasing to Grandfather and did not have to do any hard manual work. She became a fine needle worker and helped to supplement the family income by sewing denim slacks and buttons at home for tailor shops. Neither Uncle nor Mother had the opportunity to have much schooling.\n\nAlthough Grandfather was able to make a small profit from his 'dim sum' business, the Chinatown fire on 20 January 1900 disrupted it, and the family was, among many, to be confined in a camp set up in Kalihi during and following the conflagration. My grandparents were not among those residents who received compensation from the government for their losses after their release from the camp. Later that year, Grandfather bought the lease to a farm at Kapatai, Luluku, Kaneohe, for 1,000 dollars from Chun Chiu Yee8, the father of Mrs. Sam Young. The farm was named Hook Sung Waiiii and was a leasehold from Mendonca, a Portuguese of some means, although I was given the impression that the Magoons owned the land. This large piece of property was located on the Pali side of the present site of the State Hospital, at the foot of the Koolau Mountain range. It embraced a profuse spring pouring clear, cold and delicious water into a deep stream flowing through and past the entrance of the farm. Mother said that she would always watch with",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211439,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1988",
        "page_number": 155,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "131\n\nMost of the itinerant workers were from where my father originated and spoke the Nam Long subdialect. Uncle housed them in a bedroom attached to the large barn facing the concrete area used for threshing and drying the grain. After dinner these men would lie on wooden, mat-covered beds, conversing with each other while heating beads of opium over a small lamp before puffing through a long pipe the bubbling brown drug. To this day I can recognize the sweet odour of opium.\n\nWhenever Uncle went to Honolulu, he would always stop by to bring us vegetables from the farm and have his lunch, usually large buns filled with black bean paste and large, flat cakes, made largely of flour and sugar. He usually left around two o'clock in order to reach home by sundown. The journey was difficult, especially in bad weather, because the horses would sometimes balk and refuse to proceed when they approached the Pali. Uncle believed that the horses were sensitive to the presence of ghosts, so that whenever they became stubborn and refused to proceed, he would let them turn back towards Honolulu until they reached the drinking trough of spring water near the entrance to Dr. Morgan's estate. Uncle would wait until the horses were willing to start for Kaneohe again.\n\nBefore the Pali Road, started in 1898, was completed, travel was by horseback from Luluku to the half-way house at the foot of the mountain pass and up the steep slopes to the Pali. A two-seater buggy, which supplanted the horse, was most intriguing in that the passenger seat swung out before one could get in. Once we got to ride in it when Mother allowed Ruth and me to visit our cousins without her. The visit was exciting and enjoyable, as we crowded together on the matted beds, enclosed by thick mosquito netting. Soon we thought that it was more fun to be outside on the porch. As we ran back and forth carrying each other piggy-back, Uncle suddenly appeared and ordered us back to bed. I was told later that I had become so homesick that Uncle had to take us home much sooner than planned.\n\nMother looked forward to a yearly visit to Uncle's and we would go there by coach, owned by Look Buck of Kaneohe. We often grew anxious as the automobile raced down the steep, narrow and winding road. Once Mother jumped out of the coach with Helen in her arms when it began to slide backwards while manoeuvring a hairpin curve. For several years",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    }
]